you might say well his risk is what
happened to risk all in the carve true
are the stories in that book true and
the answer to that is well from a
factual perspective clearly they're
untrue but then if you think of
Raskolnikov as the embodiment of a
particular type of person who lived at
that time and the embodiment of a
certain kind of ideology which had swept
across Europe and really invaded Russia
and which was actually a precursor a
philosophical precursor to the Russian
Revolution then Raskolnikov is more real
than any one person he's like a
composite person he's like a person
who's irrelevant sees have been
eliminated for the purpose of relating
something about the structure of the
world and so I like to think of those
things as sort of meta real meta real
they're more real than real and of
course that's what you expect people to
do when they tell you about their own
lives about their own day you don't want
a factual description of every muscle
twitch you want them to distill their
experiences down into the gist which is
the significance of the experience and
the significance of the experience is
roughly what you can derive from
listening to the experience that will
change the way that you look at the
world and act in the world so it's
valuable information and they can tell
you a terrible story and that can be
valuable because that can tell you how
not to look in the world look at the
world and act in it or they can tell you
a positive story you can derive benefit
either way which is why we also like to
go watch stories about horrible
psychopathic thugs you know and and
hopefully we're learning not to be like
them although there are additional
advantages in that you know someone you
might be some say that someone who is
incapable of cruelty is a higher moral
being than someone who is capable of
cruelty and I would say and this follows
young as well that that's incorrect and
it's dangerously incorrect because if
you are not capable of cruelty
you are absolutely a victim to anyone
who is and so part of the reason that
people go watch anti heroes and villains
is because there's a part of them crying
out for the incorporation of the monster
within them which is what gives them
strength of character and self-respect
because it's impossible to respect
yourself until you grow teeth and if you
grow teeth and you realize that you're
somewhat dangerous and or maybe somewhat
seriously dangerous and then you might
be more willing to demand that you treat
yourself with respect and other people
do the same thing and so that doesn't
mean that being cruel is better than not
being cruel what it means is that being
able to be cruel and then not being
cruel is better than not being able to
be cruel because in the first case
you're nothing but weak and naive and in
the second case you're dangerous but you
have it under control and you know a lot
of martial arts concentrate on exactly
that as part of their philosophy of
training it's like we're not training
you to fight we're training you to be
peaceful and awake and avoid fights but
if you happen to have to get in one and
that against the philosophy also is is
that if you're competent at fighting
that actually decreases the probability
that you're going to have to fight
because when someone pushes you you'll
be able to respond with confidence and
with any luck and this is certainly the
case with bullies with any luck a
reasonable show of confidence which is
very much equivalent to the show of
dominance is going to be enough to make
the bully back off and so the strength
that you develop in your monstrousness
is actually the best guarantee of peace
and that's partly why young believed
that it was necessary for people to
integrate their shadow and he said that
was a terrible thing for people to
attempt because the human shadow mm
which is all those things about yourself
that you don't want to realize reaches
all the way to hell and what he meant by
that was it's through an analysis of
your own shadow that you can come to
understand why other people are capable
and you as well of the sorts of terrible
atrocities that characterize let's say
the 20th century and without that
understanding there's no possibility of
bringing it under control
when you study Nazi Germany for example
or you study the Soviet Union
particularly under Stalin and you're
asking yourself well what are these
perpetrators like forget about the
victims let's talk about the
perpetrators the answer is they're just
like you and if you don't know that that
just means that you don't know anything
about people including yourself and then
it also means that you have to discover
why they're just like you and believe me
that's no picnic so that's enough to
traumatize people and that's partly why
they don't do it and it's also partly
why the path to enlightenment and wisdom
is seldom trod upon because if it was
all a matter of following your bliss and
doing what made you happy then everyone
in the world would be a paragon of
wisdom but it's not that at all it's the
it's a matter of facing the thing you
least want to face